Sharpening, the hardest part?

[alehel]

Am I the only one who thinks applying the right amount of sharpening to an image is the hardest part of the whole photography process? I never can make up my mind about what's to much and to little. I hate it

The fact that Apple Aperture has two different methods of sharpening, which both contain several sliders, doesn't help things.

[mickeyobe]

I too find sharpening difficult. It is so easy to overdo it.
I try to stay away from computer sharpening as much as possible.
Insteaf I look to my camera to give me the sharpness I desire.

I have set the camera for its sharpest rendering. (Pentax K100D)
I have increased the camera's contrast.
I have set the ISO/ASA speed to 400 and use 200 whenever possible.
I use as small an aperture as the picture permits under prevailing light and movement conditions.
I am very concious of how I hold the camera and will resort to a monopod or tripod if necessary.
A slight increase in contrast on the computer can make the photo appear sharper.

Mickey

[alehel]

I use Apple Aperture and photograph in PEF. As far as I've understood, settings applied to the RAW file in camera are not interpreted by Aperture. For this reason, I have often concidered going over to using Pentax Photo Lab, but when I tried it last, I missed the freedom it gave me.

I often wonder though if it's worth shooting in RAW. I've just started shooting in RAW+ as this gives me complete freedom. I may well chose to stop using RAW as I'm often quite satisfied with the jpeg. I might contiue to shoot in RAW+ though as it's great to be able to fall back on the RAW file, should I wish to do so.

[soccerjoe5]

Sharpening isn't as hard as it may seem

Invest in a good detailed photoshop book designed for photographers and it will all make sense, and you'll know how to sharpen your photos with ease depending on the type of photo (portrait, landscape, etc) and its use. There's a different way to sharpen for the web, for viewing on computer screens, for prints (different kinds of printing methods too).

[Damn Brit]

From a printing POV I have heard that it is desirable to slightly oversharpen the image, haven't tried it myself yet.
I don't have too much problem when I sharpen pictures for on screen viewing, I zoom to print size and focus on the important areas, one way to judge it is to at the same time watch the background areas as this is where noise increase the more you sharpen.

[soccerjoe5]

Originally Posted by Damn Brit

From a printing POV I have heard that it is desirable to slightly oversharpen the image, haven't tried it myself yet.

Prints on matte will come out better when sharpening a little bit more than the sharpening normally applied for glossy paper

[Damn Brit]

Originally Posted by soccerjoe5

Prints on matte will come out better when sharpening a little bit more than the sharpening normally applied for glossy paper

Thanks for the clarification Diego, I probably wouldn't print on glossy anyway.

[MPrince]

I use this method for sharpening:

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial | Digital Photography | Sharpen Photo | High Pass Filter | Layers Magazine

It's a very subtle technique, and much less prone to artifacts.

[soccerjoe5]

Originally Posted by Damn Brit

Thanks for the clarification Diego, I probably wouldn't print on glossy anyway.

You're welcome!

If you guys are willing to research and learn how to sharpen using the Lab color mode and Lightness channel it can greatly improve your sharpening as it doesn't sharpen your colors (which lead to halos when overdone)

[graphicgr8s]

Sharpening is the last operation you want to run though. CS3 has smart sharpen which is great. Scott Kelby has a book on CS3/CS4 for photographers you might like.

[alehel]

Apparently, the sharpening in aperture is supposed to work in much the same way as Photo Lab.

Also, I've been comparing out of camera jpeg images with RAW files that I have processed. I noticed that the sky in the jpeg contains alot more noise than the sky in the RAW file, but this is also my own fault. I havn't got used to the fact that the K200D underexposes images as much as it does, and as a result, I often end up having to apply somewhere between +0.6EV and +1.2EV, depending on the scene. This obviously causes grain to appear, and I presume that this would be more evident in a jpeg than a RAW file. At least that's what I've been told by others.

[legacyb4]

Funnily enough, I've found I'm pretty happy with +2 ticks on the Sharpen setting for JPEG in the K20D. I've found that if something isn't quite sharp enough, it's user error on my part...

[ivoire]

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

Sharpening is the last operation you want to run though. CS3 has smart sharpen which is great. Scott Kelby has a book on CS3/CS4 for photographers you might like.

I agree that it should be the last adjustment. I use smart sharpen in pshop. Start with lens blur at a setting of 20%, 2 pixels and compare the results. I never go above those settings and always adjust to a lower %/pixel ratio.

[newarts]

Getting sharpening "right" is difficult because a perfectly focused image has minimum edge contrast. Unfortunately this doesn't "look nice".

Iowa Dave

[heliphoto]

Originally Posted by mickeyobe

...
I use as small an aperture as the picture permits under prevailing light and movement conditions.
...
Mickey

Mickey, I wanted to comment on this step (even though I'm derailing the thread somewhat since this isn't software sharpening. ). You may know this, but someone who reads your comment may not, so I want to clarify a bit for the record (according to my limited knowledge of the subject).

Most lenses will have an aperture which is the sharpest, and almost always this isn't the smallest aperture available. Below a certain aperture the effects of diffraction become more and more appearent, causing a progressive degradation of sharpness. For instance the DA* 16-50 claims (using the MTF program line) it's sharpest at f/4 (if I remember correctly - it's out in the truck right now). I've shot the same scene at full stop increments from f/2.8 through f/22, and while I don't see degradation immediately past f/4, by f/11 I can see some loss of sharpness in the subject, and by f/16 it is fairly pronounced. Of course if you are trying to focus on a very close subject and extend DOF as far as possible, the trade off of general loss of IQ for added DOF may be worth it, but in general I've decided not to use the lens past f/8.

If you're interested, I'd recommend you perform a similar test with your often used lenses, though of course if you're getting the results you like from your technique, the you can safely ignore my pixel-peeping drivel, and just enjoy your photography (in fact that's what I'd recommend ).

The luminous-landscape has a very good article on this subject here.